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Tired of the budget speakerphones or, worse, using your smartphone as a speakerphone and hoping for the best? Tech expert Dave Taylor checks out the POLY Sync 40 professional smart speakerphone and finds that there's a lot to like in this sleek and beautiful unit. It's a compliment to any exec's desk and you can find 'em in Fortune 100 conference rooms. Dave tests it out to find out what's so nice...
Check it out at: https://www.POLY.com/
Visit Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/
#poly #sync40 #speakerphone #bluetooth #wireless #polycom #askdavetaylor
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0:00
Now this is a pro level speakerphone
0:02
Let's check it out. Dave Taylor here and I'm checking out
0:12
This is the Poly Sync40 smart speaker phone and it's really pretty slick
0:18
It's made by Plantronics, a company that's been making telephony gear for, oh gosh, decades now
0:25
They have been making headsets and speaker phones and telephones for just
0:29
just a long, long time. So it's no surprise. This is such a fantastic high-end piece of hardware
0:36
Now, inside of it is Bluetooth 5.1. So it is indeed a wireless smart speaker phone. I have it already
0:44
paired with my iPhone 14 Pro. I could just easily pair it with an Android phone. And then I can
0:51
use it wherever I want. You charge it up and you got 30 hours of talk time on this device
0:57
but there's more. It has a three microphone steerable array, so it's going to pick you up even from a distance
1:04
and regardless of where you are. If I put this in the middle of my conference room
1:09
then people all around will be able to use it. And here's one cool thing
1:13
Get another one of these, and they can wirelessly pair and work together
1:17
So you can have a long, long table, like in Citizen Kane, something like that
1:22
have one of these near each end, and you're going to pick up everybody's conversation
1:27
and everybody's talk. That is just what you want. Now, it filters out noise and echo
1:32
and we're going to test that in just a minute. And as I said, you can wirelessly pair two
1:37
It's a 5,000 mill-amp-hour battery, and here's what's kind of interesting is it not only gives you that 30 hours of talk time
1:44
but off the end here, there is actually a USB plug, and you can actually charge your smartphone off of that
1:51
In fact, let's have a quick tour. So on this side, you can see that there's power
1:57
and Bluetooth and there's that somewhat hidden USB charging port. On the other side is a lock port for I imagine that's probably like the Logitec lock system
2:09
so you can have it affixed to your conference table so it doesn't walk away
2:15
That would be a good thing. And then along the front are an array of touch sensitive buttons that light up
2:21
if they're actually available to use at that point. So if I'm on a call, another button will light up
2:29
The default ones are mute on and off. And if I mute it, you can see more buttons show up and then volume up and down
2:37
And then you can actually program one of the buttons. There are different buttons for different purposes because it also certified for Microsoft Teams and Zoom So they have a version of this designed for Microsoft Teams You don need to get that version
2:52
The regular version is going to work just fine, but it gives you a specific button just for that purpose
2:58
Kind of interesting idea. Now, with this on and properly attached, then you have an IP64 dust and water resistant device
3:07
So if you have it at the conference table and someone's got a little bit slashed at the holiday party and they splash wine all over it
3:14
You can just give it a quick wipe with a wet cloth and it's going to work fine
3:18
You don't have to terminate them for getting wine on your speakerphone. That's a good thing
3:23
So let's see. Not much else talk about other than there is a wired mode and it has a built-in wire
3:30
and the wire has a built-in adapter. So it's USBA, but then you put this on top and now it's USBC
3:38
Now, this is an important thing to notice because when it first comes out of the box, and I want to say the box has no manual, no quick start guide, nothing. You're really kind of on your own. So I will tell you that I learned the hard way. Let's see if I can get this to fit in here to be neat. There we go. I learned the hard way you have to wire, plug it in, and then that wakes it from its shipping mode, and then you can use the power button as a normal sort of interaction
4:08
But what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to search for the manual and download a copy and read through it because it's also a little tricky to do that first Bluetooth pairing
4:19
But I have done that. So let's do some tests. First off, here's the box. I don't think we need it. So I'm going to just get rid of it
4:26
So first, let's try just playing some music because that's always a good test. Is this the speaker actually any good
4:35
And I'll turn this up pretty loud. And notice you're getting that feedback from the light and you know what
4:44
It sounds pretty darn good. It's not a big, lush soundstage like you would expect from an audiophile speaker
4:51
but it's eminently listenable. It has bass. It has a full range response
4:57
If I had to audition a musician through my phone or something, this would work fine
5:03
This would give me most of the nuance. And for that to be part of a speakerphone is pretty remarkable
5:08
because most of the ones I've tested, and I've tested a lot of speakerphones
5:12
most of them tend to be focused on the human voice, which is the mid to high frequency
5:18
So there's often no base at all. This actually has base. This actually would sound really good
5:24
I mean, it looks almost like a tiny little sound bar. But so there that But what I really want to do is I really want to test the voice pickup And to do that what we going to do is I going to go into voice recordings on here
5:39
And let me go ahead and stab it so you can see what's going on. So I'm in voice recordings
5:44
And then while I'm using this, I'm going to turn on this
5:49
And this gives us the background noise you might experience in, let's say, a trade show
5:57
and you're at the break room and you need to talk to the boss and a couple other people and there's some other people
6:02
that you want to have on the call, but there's a noisy background. So we're gonna actually do that and see how that works
6:09
because that's a test of how it can reduce the background noise
6:13
So let's start recording. And now what you're hearing is my voice as recorded
6:19
or as picked up by the Poly Sync40. And as you can hear, it's really clean and clear
6:26
Now let's get that background noise. And with that noise, I'm going to talk over the noise
6:33
so you can hear how it sort of does a very subtle job
6:37
of removing that noise while I'm talking. But if I stop, you can still hear
6:43
I'm in a pretty noisy environment. So let's stop that. So that's how all that works, and that's pretty slick
6:50
I think it works really nicely. And if I mute it, and I'll push this button
6:56
But what you could see, hopefully was that that bar went red
7:01
So that's pretty cool. Now, let me stop the recording because I want to show you one more thing
7:11
So while we have my recording going, let me show you that the device includes an app
7:19
You'll have to download it, but it's for Mac or Windows or there's a Chrome web-based version or Android or iOS
7:25
or iOS. So I have the iOS version and that gives me all the functionality that I need. So if I want to
7:33
look at settings, for example, then you can see there's a lot of settings. Here's general settings
7:40
And secure Bluetooth connection is really interesting because what it does is if I enable that
7:46
as soon as I'm done with my Zoom call or my FaceTime or my Microsoft Teams, whatever is I'm using it for
7:53
as soon as I do that it drop the Bluetooth connection Why Because then when my mom calls me to tell me that I didn pick up the groceries or something that won just automatically end up on the speakerphone So if you in a multi environment that can be a really nice setting There a lot of other options with equalizers and notifications And if we go back from general you can see there ringtones And perhaps one of the most important is there software update And I already did a software update on this And you
8:25
should always check for firmware updates. I already did that. And that's all done. And I'm good
8:30
So I can go back to this screen. And not a whole lot else you can do. They do actually have the
8:37
manual right here in the app. And so if you get the app for your Windows or your Mac, then you will
8:44
will also have that documentation. Maybe if they had a little card that really enthusiastically
8:50
encourage you to get that app, that would be helpful. But, you know, you can figure it out as I figured
8:56
it out. And also shows me the battery level and it shows me the connection status. So
9:02
let me turn off that recording and that's really everything. I really, really like this device
9:08
I think it's really elegant looking and the sound is terrific. I could absolutely see. I could absolutely
9:13
see bringing this on a road trip or something or if I was doing some sales calls and I needed to call
9:19
into the home office while I had clients sitting at the desk. Something like this is a game
9:25
changer. This is the level of look, we're serious. We're a real business. We're really caring about
9:32
this. It's not like let's just assume that my phone can be a speaker phone because you know what
9:37
Your phone's not a very good speaker phone. But something like this really is. So what we do need to
9:43
talk about is the price. Now, before we get to the price, let me just mention some dimensions
9:48
So it's 1.5 inches, I guess that dimension by 4 inches, by 10.7 inches, and it's 21.5 ounces
9:56
It's a fairly big device, and it's fairly heavy. But again, 30 hours when you have it fully
10:02
charged, that's pretty sweet. So it is the Poly Sync40 smart speaker phone, and it's
10:10
299.95 currently discounted down to 23995 at poly.com. And I got to say this is very much one of the
10:21
best speaker phones I've looked at. A lot of the ones I look at are at a lower price point. So this is a
10:27
fairly premium item in terms of its cost. But boy, it sounds great. The pickup is great
10:34
This is a really solid professional option for people that really want to get to the next level
10:40
That's all I got. I hope to catch you in my next video
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